MUNICH
Bayern Munich left it late to grind out a 2-0 win in Mainz on Saturday and move one victory away from the Bundesliga title.
Bastian Schweinsteiger broke the deadlock in the 82nd minute and Mario Goetze added another goal four minutes later to secure Bayern’s league-record 18th consecutive win and stretch its unbeaten run to 51 games.
Second-place Borussia Dortmund won 3-0 at Hannover but remains 23 points behind Bayern with eight games remaining.
Schalke consolidated third with a 3-1 win over bottom side Eintracht Braunschweig.
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Stuttgart beat 10-man Hamburger SV 1-0 to move above the visiting side and climb out of the relegation zone.
Wolfsburg also ended with 10 men in a 1-1 draw with Augsburg.
Borussia Moenchengladbach was hosting Hertha Berlin later. Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), fresh from drawing Chelsea in the Champions League quarter-finals, maintained their march to a defence of their Ligue 1 title with a 1-0 win over spirited Lorient on Friday.
Elsewhere, Thiago Motta’s first half goal was all that split the two teams with the valiant mid-table hosts giving Laurent Blanc’s side plenty of nervy moments in Brittany.
The hard fought win on Lorient’s artificial pitch at their Stade du Moustoir extended PSG’s crushing lead at the top of Ligue 1 to 11 points, with second-placed Monaco in action on Sunday against third-placed Lille.
“We can’t always win 3,4 or 5-0. We must congratulate the players even if it was not an extraordinary performance,” said Blanc, who insisted that his team had not been distracted by their impending clash with Chelsea.
“All reporters believe that we have talked of nothing but Chelsea, that it’s difficult to think of Lorient. But tonight we were at the Moustoir, not at Stamford Bridge.”
For PSG, who prevailed despite not being at the top of their game, this success was their sixth in a row in Ligue 1 and their eighth on the trot in all competitions.
Blanc elected to field Brazilian Marquinhos in place of his compatriot Alex in central defence, with Marco Verratti regaining his place in midfield from Yohan Cabaye after a two-game absence.
– AFP
